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Posts Tagged ‘winter’

We are expecting our first major snowfall tonight, with 8-12″ forecast. I’m thankful we’ve made it until March before getting some major snow. I am also thankful our worst case scenario is 1 foot of snow, not 3 feet like we experienced January 2016. We had a few preparations to make before the snowfall, one of […]

Another wintry week has passed! This one had record high temperatures, though, so we are thankful for the mild winter weather. We try to cut back to “maintenance mode” in winter with no special projects, but things always pop up. That’s when we really appreciate the mild winter weather! Since it’s not too frigid outside, […]

In Part 1 of this series I posted the considerations we take into consideration in our pig housing. In Part 2 I detailed the first pig houses we made. Today in Part 3 I will detail our second pig house design, a hoophouse! Here are some prior posts about hoophouses for more tips and tricks: […]

Happy Friday! We’ve had such wonderful weather the last few days. Who would imagine it’d be over 70 degrees in January? I know more character-building cold will come, and I’m fine with that. But I will enjoy today. Pork is Here! We now have a freezer full of pork from the two pigs we took to […]

A while back we adapted our rabbit tractors for winter use. Read about those changes here and here. Elevating the tractors increased the occurence of what had previously been a minor issue: the rabbits flipping their feed dishes and spilling all the feed. When that happened and the tractors were on the ground, it was […]

Snow! This morning we awoke to our first snow of the season. A pretty dusting of snow added some charm to the morning chores. We’re thankful for what has been a pretty mild winter so far! Our two types of pigs had very different views on this snow. Our American Guinea Hogs were out of […]

Farm Store Open This Saturday 12-4pm We are enjoying our new arrangement of having the farm store open the first Saturday of every month. It’s great to have this regular time to welcome customers and share our offerings with you! We work very hard to offer high quality products, and it’s a joy to see […]

Here at Independence Homestead, winter begins when we switch from automatic waterers to bottles for the rabbits. We do this when the temperature stays below freezing for an entire day, so the automatic waterers will be frozen and won’t work. Well, that happened last week and bottles are up! If you’re facing chilly temperatures as […]

Every winter we work hard to ensure the animals have access to water. With several animal pens, this can be a challenge. It can be frustrating to refill a water bowl with fresh water only to have it freeze in a matter of hours. Here are some tips we’ve learned along the way that may […]

In Part 1 I gave an overview of our rabbit grow out practices in the growing season, and profiled a rabbit breeder’s choices for growing out rabbits in winter. Here I will detail the grow out method we are using this winter. This winter we are using our portable rabbit tractors as grow out pens […]

Winter presents a number of challenges on the homestead, one of which is how to grow out rabbits. Today I’ll explain our grow out method for the growing seasons, and what we do in winter! When grass is growing, we grow out meat rabbits or replacement breeders in portable pens we call rabbit tractors. To learn […]

Our rabbits are typically good mamas, but every once in a while something goes wrong. One challenge we’ve come across a few times is rabbit kits who get out of the nesting box too early. They’re not old enough to coordinate getting out and back in the box, and they’re not furry enough to stay […]

Here’s the latest (and final) installment in our Weathering the Winter series! Today we’re talking about how to winterize chickens. Here you can see our chicken yard in all its winter glory. Chicken wire on the sides and top of the enclosure provide predator protection. The chicken wire on the top provides protection from hawks, […]

Today’s Weathering the Winter series post details our winter management for ducks. This winter we have a flock of 16 Khaki Campbell ducks, which we use for egg laying purposes. The ducks are one of our hardiest animals, and seem to do just fine in cold, snowy weather. There’s a reason humans take their feathers to insulate […]

Rabbits are well equipped for winter with their insulating fur coats, but there are still some measures we take to make care of them easier, and to ensure their wellbeing. Housing Our breeders are housed in wire cages in semi-protected structures, and this is adequate for most winter weather. When weather is especially extreme, such […]

Here’s the latest in our Weathering the Winter series where we profile how we take care of our livestock in winter. Today we talk about our pigs! Our American Guinea Hogs are pretty hardy, and there isn’t too much special care they require for winter, but we do make a few management changes. In warmer weather […]

If you live somewhere with seasons, you must plan accordingly with your livestock. Even when we’re not getting a record-breaking snowstorm, every fall we move our livestock and change our practices in preparation for winter weather. This is the first article in a series focusing on the winter weather practices we follow. Each article will focus […]

Along with much of the East Coast, we just endured a record-breaking snowstorm. When you live on a homestead with livestock, weather is a big deal. The livestock need to be cared for every day, and that means getting to them, and making sure they can get around, no matter what the weather. As we […]

It’s another snowy January day here on the homestead! Most of the animals don’t like being in the snow, choosing to stay under cover. These chickens ventured out, probably to see if I had any treats for them! Unfortunately for them, there were no treats this time.

We moved into Independence Homestead at the beginning of the summer in 2011, so almost a year ago. Last year was spent improving the inside of the house and settling in. While we did routine maintenance on the yard, that’s about all we did outside. The prior owners were obviously not gardeners, so we started […]